Quarantine (31 page)

Musa hadn't walked a step. 'My story ends with me a little richer

than I was.' He looked at Shim: 'Your learned commentary,

please. Don't disappoint us now.' He took a breath and held it

in his lungs, so that his face began to redden. Now was the time

to take them by surprise.

'This is a story,' Shim said, with care, 'that might serve for us

all. The first thirteen monkeys that you followed did not reach

the water that you sought. It was only that you persevered until

the fourteenth. It's perseverance you are teaching us. For that

my neighbours will be grateful . . . I am sure . . . '

He would have said a little more, attempted to improve his

standing, if Musa had not cried out suddenly, and slapped his

hands across his stomach. 'This pain . . . is more than I can

tolerate,' he said. He closed his eyes and blew out air. He put

his hand into his hair. 'I'm burning hot. My head.'

'Shall I bring more water?' Aphas said.

'No, no. Just let me rest.'

Musa opened half an eye, and looked around. Shim, he noticed,

was almost smiling. Marta had stood up and looked alarmed. His

wife had put her hand up to her face. He could not see her

mouth. She'd be concerned, he thought, that the devil had come

back to him and that she'd soon be widowed by a second

onslaught of the fever. On a rock, beyond the furthest of the

caves, he saw the badu balancing on one leg like an egret, one

foot resting on his other knee.

'No, no,' Musa said again. 'I must lie down. It's here.' He

pointed to his side - a sharp pain in his liver - and ran his hands

across his abdomen - an area of general suffering.

'Something you've eaten,' said Aphas helpfully, although he

could not imagine that anybody's liver pains were worse than

his. He'd defer to Shim for cleverness and to Musa for a blinding

tongue, but he'd counted general suffering to be his own reserve.

'That meat,' said Musa, in his most boyish voice, 'it was bad.

Your honey hid the taste.' He'd let his tenants think they'd

poisoned him. 'I'm hot.' And then, once Miri had come up to

fan him with her scarf, 'I'm cold. This is bad . . . They steal my

meat, and now they poison me. ' Musa would have doubled up

with pain ifhe could. He was too big to bend. Instead he rolled

over on his side, and spread out in the dust, a wounded animal,

its great head cushioned only by some stones. He'd seen Aphas

acting out his cancer in the last thirty days, and had not been

impressed. Musa could do better. Winces and deep breathing

weren't enough. He experimented with some uncontrolled

spasms in his leg. He clutched his ear. He looked as frightened

and as baffled as he could. This was not low cunning. Musa did

not like to be accused of that. His cunning was the highest kind;

it was his version of a miracle.

The wind had lifted. The afternoon was cold and coming to

an end. The clouds had brought the darkness early. He had no

time to waste. 'I need to sleep,' he said.

The women lifted up a leg apiece, while Aphas, Shim and the

badu dragged their landlord by his shoulders to the nearest empty

cave - the one a few steps along from Marta's which opened on

to the sloping terrace, screened only by a few salt bushes and the

coppery debris of the cliff. They laid him on the soil with only

Marta's shawl as his cot-clothes. They put his head on it. He put

his nose in it. He liked the warmth of Marta and her smell.

His wife and his tenants stood in the entrance of the cave,

blocking out the light, whispering. What should they do with

him? Not one of them had said, 'Be well again, ' or stroked his

brow. Everybody knew of people who had died as suddenly as

this - the same unheralded pain, the cry, the fingers stretched

across the chest, the grey-red face, the final, chortling breath.

The world might lose some stories if Musa died, but not much

else worth keeping. The prospect ofhis death was tolerable. His

death was overdue. Miri did not even dare to pray. Her prayers

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had let her down before. Would there be a second chance of

rolling Musa down the slope into the cistern she had dug for

him? Why waste good water on the man? They'd only have to

block his cave with stones to make a sepulchre and mark the

stones with chalk to warn future quarantiners and any passing

Jews that there was a corrupting body inside.

'Miri, Miri, come to me,' he said at last, his voice more

vulnerable than she had ever heard it before, his face invisible.

He made her kneel and put her ear against his lips. His breath

was warm and dry. No eggy smells, this time. 'Go to the tent

for me, take care of everything,' he said. 'I cannot walk. I must

sleep here. Bring back a flask of date spirit in the morning as

soon as it's light. Bring rugs and blankets, some pillows for my

head. Collect some herbs. Bake something sweet for me tonight.

The honey's there. And don't forget to fill the water-bags. Tell

him to come.' He pointed at Aphas.

Aphas knelt as best he could, and strained to listen to his

landlord's slowly fading words. 'Go with my Miri, uncle. Keep

her safe, for there are brigands in these hills. And wolves, bad

wolves. A woman should not be alone out here. Call him and

her.' Now Shim and Marta were summoned. She knelt a little

distance from Musa's side, her head cocked to hear what he

wanted from her. Shim, though, was reluctant to kneel down

at all. He worried for his ankles and his little toe, despite his

landlord's sudden, devastating illness. But Musa found the

strength to raise his voice: 'I beg you, one of you, it doesn't

matter which . . . Stay in your cave tonight, and bring me water

if I call. Say prayers for me ifl should die. Take care ofMiri and

the goats . . . ' He struggled for some breath. 'The other one of

you. This is my final wish. The Gaily saved my life before. Go

down to him while there is any light. Stand on our rock where

we have stood so many times. Call out until your voice has gone.

Stay through the night and pray to him. Say that I'll die unless

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he comes. Have pity on a man . . . Which one of you will go?'

He meant, of course, which one of you will stay. He knew it

would be Marta, naturally. An unattended woman could not

stand out on a rock, past midnight, praying to a madman in a

cave. There was a risk, of course, that Shim would be the one

to stay behind. Then Musa would go to his cave at night and

smash his yellow head in with a rock. A secondary pleasure.

Everybody gladly did as they were told. Aphas and Shim

would rather go down to the tent and to the promontory than

stay with Musa. Let him die or let him recover on his own. They

did not want to witness either. Aphas thought how comfortable

he'd be, sleeping on rugs for a change. Miri thought of the hours

she could spend, in candlelight, tying knots on to her mat. Shim

had reclaimed his curly staff, almost as soon as Musa had fallen

to the ground. He liked the idea of a private vigil on the

promontory, wrapped in his thickest cloak, alone at last with

Musa's very stupid boy - although, of course, he'd not call out

too loudly to the Galilean or press too hard for him to come and

minister to Musa. He had no faith in shepherd boys. He did not

want a miracle.

They hurried off, the three of them. They ran away.

Marta shrugged. She didn't really care that she was left behind.

Another night of quarantine, so what? She was the least resentful

of them all. Musa's stories softened her. She couldn't really fear

a man who was so captivating, and so sick, and who had fathered

Miri's child. If only Thaniel had been able to tell a tale like that.

If only he were not so dull. Perhaps she would be pregnant, too.

Musa kept away from Marta. He played with time and let the

woman go about her evening tasks. He heard her footsteps,

smelled her fire, heard her coughing in the smoke. He did not

bother her. He was at peace. The cave was warm enough. Its

floor was soft. He slept. He'd wait till night. They were alone

at last, or only separated by the earth between their caves.

r 8 r

There was the badu left, of course. An easy person to forget.

After everyone else had received their whispered instructions

from Musa, he had come and knelt inside the cave. He'd felt his

landlord's forehead and shaken his head as if to say, This illness

is bad. You stand no chance; or, This is Nothing. I'm not fooled.

Get up and go back to your tent. He'd pressed his cheeks, his

hair into Musa's face. Musa could have bitten him. He could

have smashed his hennaed head in with a rock. Instead, he

whispered in his ear, 'Enjoy your run, you monkey boy . . .

Keep out of sight.' But, really, Musa didn't care about a madman

such as him. He was too small to intervene between such large

adversaries.

It would have been the perfect night for Musa's death, if he'd

been truly ill or if some god, fooled by the noise that Musa made,

had decided that the time had come to put an end to him. The

sky was mourners' black. No stars. Nor hardly any moon. What

little light there was was muffled in the stacks of mist, which

made the outline of the hills seem less solid even than the

clouds. A passing world, but heavens everlasting. The earth was

insubstantial and the sky was hard.

On such a night, death could have crept in unobserved, rubbed

its fingers over Musa's eyes and passed his heavy soul up into

the heavens without betraying its stem work by casting any

shadows in the scrub. Ifhe'd cried out, 'It touches me,' in those

few moments when the vapours of his life were pressed out of

his flesh and mixed in with the clouds, no one would have come

to cling on to his chubby toes and plead, 'This man is merchandise

that can't be touched. We will not let you take this man from

,

us.

The badu was awake all night, it's true, but he would not

come to Musa's aid. He would not and he could not hear the

vapours and the flesh divide. Marta was only dozing, possibly,

but she was meek and sensible enough to stay inside her own

cave for the night, whatever noises she could hear. Musa might

call for help from his small family, as he had done before, 'Miri,

Miri. Come to me, quick, and save me from . . ' A dying man

.

could reasonably expect his wife to battle for his life. But Miri

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was too far away to care that he was calling. She and the old

man, Aphas, were sleeping better than they'd slept for many

days, out ofhearing, in the tent, and for the moment unconcerned